Professor Alain Badiou

A lecture presenting the argument that in the world today, the “real” is generally confused with the economy.

Professor Campbell Jones of Sociology introduced Professor Alain Badiou as “the greatest living philosopher” to present his À la recherche du réel perdu: In search of the lost real lecture at the University of Auckland on Tuesday 25 November 2014.

In his lecture Professor Badiou argued that in the world today, the “real” is generally confused with the economy. Knowledge of the “real” has been reduced progressively to economics, to the point that economics now literally dictate the obligations of politics.

He argued that political scandals show us a small part of the “real” which is generally obscured and invisible. These scandals are presented as an exception to the law of the world, rather than representative of the general or structural situation, and function finally as propaganda.

The lecture was presented by the School of Social Sciences, the Auckland Critical Theory Collective, and the Europe Institute.